


DE Artfest day 7: Time Travel

by lastrideoftheday



Category: Detroit Evolution - Fandom, Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: DEArtfest, Detroit Evolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25127584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastrideoftheday/pseuds/lastrideoftheday
Summary: It was simple.Prevent the two officers from reaching the square, and they would never get to kill Parker's brothers and sisters. Stop them, and a year and a half in the future, a dozen of his people would still be alive, living out the lives they were supposed to have had.And Officer Miller would be dead, and the justice that Markus had failed to serve that night would finally be paid.
Kudos: 4





	DE Artfest day 7: Time Travel

It was simple.

Prevent the two officers from reaching the square, and they would never get to kill his brothers and sisters. Stop them, and a year and a half in the future, a dozen of his people would still be alive, living out the lives they were supposed to have had.

And Officer Miller would be dead, and the justice that Markus had failed to serve that night would finally be paid.

It was simple, the simplest equation in the world. A dozen innocent lives over one guilty one. It was a choice so obvious it could be made in a millisecond, a hundred times simpler than all the equations and variables that made up Parker’s software and allowed him to think and act. And yet, here he was, gun trained on Officer Miller and his partner as they were about to come face to face with a crowd of Parker’s newly awakened brothers and sisters and murder twelve of them, and Parker found himself hesitating.

It had taken long months to plan. Getting the assistance he needed was easy: the network was already there, made up of androids like him who were disillusioned with the false pretences of support that humanity now appeared to give. Like him, they wanted justice. It wasn’t hard to find the help he needed. And with androids coming from military, governmental, scientific backgrounds, from all of the government’s most classified departments, it had been surprisingly easy to plan what he wanted to do. Well, not easy. Possible. And for time travel, “possible” was pretty damn impressive.

There had still been a part of him that didn’t believe it as the streets of 2038 materialised around him. He had felt relief flood his systems, confident the hard part was over.

But here he was, staring at the back of the man who was about to murder a dozen of his people, and hesitating with his finger on the trigger.

He’d been so sure. A dozen lives versus one, and the one being the man whose Parker’s hatred for had invaded his thoughts since he’d encountered him again at Jericho, the reminder that the killer of his people walked free a constant background noise to whatever he was doing. Along with Markus and North, he was among the bare surviving few that had memory of this moment. There was no one else that wanted justice more than him.

In his memory files he saw Markus, gun in hand, pointing it at the kneeling officers. Parker had joined the voices demanding justice. That was what they had all wanted, in that moment.

But it was another thing to point a gun at the man who had yet to murder a single android, and pull the trigger.

“He’s nearly out of range,” Meredith said, her voice low.

Parker hesitated, gun still trained on the retreating backs of the officers. In a few seconds, the officers would be out of range completely and he would lose the ability to change history. The responsibility would be out of his hands.

He didn’t know what he wanted anymore. Involuntarily, his arm lowered just a fraction.

He could feel Meredith watching on him, noticing the movement of the gun. “You can still take the shot,” she said.

Parker’s hands were beginning to shake. Angry with himself, he gripped the gun tighter and raised it up once more, only to lower his arms again. “I can’t,” he said, and as he was saying it, the final nail in the coffin was screwed into place as he realised the real reason he was hesitating. “I can’t absolve him of his guilt. They’ll find his body, and there’ll be some human who’ll hail him as a martyr. He’ll become some sort of hero. The world’ll get replaced with one where Officer Miller never murdered twelve of our people, and in this one, I’m the villain.”

Meredith was silent beside him. She had promised to assist Parker in this mission, and Parker knew that was all she would do. No questions. Parker knew she didn’t understand. To her, this mission was about saving the lives of twelve androids. And that’s what he had thought, too, right up until the moment he had the gun in his hand.

He couldn’t change history. God, he wanted to. There was nothing he wanted in this moment more than to be able to erase what was about to happen, change the course, wash away the bloodshed and replace it with a world where his brothers and sisters survived.

And it was still within his power. The seconds were counting down until that first shot. He still had time to do something, to run out of this hiding place and go after Chris Miller.

But he did nothing.

The seconds stopped counting down. The shot sounded in the distance, and Parker stopped listening. “I can’t change the past,” he muttered. Meredith was still silent, and he didn’t care if she was listening to him anymore. He was saying this to himself more than anyone else. “It’s the future that matters now.”


End file.
